“From seeing and knowing the one and not the other.  That is it.  All I ask is that you will wait until you know both, before you make up your mind—­a week—­no more, if you can spare no more.  It is not for me to tell you what your rights are, that you are not in the position of the average young girl, just from the convent, who accepts the choice her father and mother make for her—­because, perhaps, she may never have another; and, at all events, because she cannot choose.  You have the world to choose from, and—­forgive me for saying it—­you have no one to choose for you but those who are interested in the choice.  May I speak?”

She hesitated, and their eyes met for a moment.

“Yes,” she said suddenly.

“Count Bosio may be the best of men.  I do not know.  But he is the middle-aged, younger brother of Count Macomer, with a very slender fortune of his own and a position no better than the rest of us.  If he marries you, he becomes Prince of Acireale, a Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, a Grandee of Spain of the First Class—­and many times a millionnaire.  For you have all that to give the man you marry.  Grant that he is the best of men.  Is his brother wholly disinterested?  I speak plainly.  It is rumoured that Count Macomer has lost most of his fortune in speculations.  I do not know whether that is true.  Even if it is not, what was all his fortune compared to what it would mean to him if his brother held yours?”

“My uncle never speculated in his life!” answered Veronica, rather indignantly.

“Grant that.  The other side remains.  And the countess?  Is she wholly disinterested?  Has she been disappointed by the marriage she made, or not?  She was born a Serra, like yourself, and she married Macomer in the days of the old court, when he was a favourite with the old king and had a brilliant position, and people said that he might be one of the first men in the kingdom.  But Garibaldi swept all that away, and Macomer’s chances with it, and the countess is a disappointed woman, for her husband has remained just what he always was—­plain Count Macomer, with his name and his palace, neither of them extraordinary.  Truly, Donna Veronica, though you may refuse to speak to me again for what I say, I will dare to tell you that you must be very unsuspicious!  They conceal from you the honourable offer of such a man as Gianluca della Spina, the eldest son of a great old house, and they announce your betrothal with Count Bosio before either you or he know of it.  One need not be very distrustful to think all that strange—­even granting that Count Bosio is the best of men, a matter of which you are a judge.”

“I would rather that you should not say those things to me,” said Veronica, a little pale, and turning half round as though she would go back to Bianca and Ghisleri.